Cheap Colonial Hauler for Paltrysum

[PsiTraveller]

Paltrysum made mention of a desire for a cheap throwaway colony ship to move people from Albe to Cordillon in the thread on Solar Panels. I thought that was a cool idea. Here is my quick and dirty offf the cuff design to make a cheap system for moving lots of people. It uses Fast Drug as a means of reducing costs.
Fast Drug places the person into a slow metabolic state so 1 day is 2 months of time for them.

FAST DRUG
Also called Hibernation, this drug puts the Traveller into a
state akin to suspended animation, slowing his metabolic rate
down to a ratio of 60 to 1 – a subjective day for the Traveller
is actually two months. Fast Drug is normally used to prolong
life support reserves or as a cheap substitute for a cryoberth.

So dosing a person makes a slow breathing "corpse" for 2 months and uses 1 day of life suppport in that time.
So doing the math: 60 people on slow drug uses 1 day of life support in 1 day. For 200 Credits per person. And thus coffin transport is born.

Coffins: 1 meter wide, 2 meters deep 0.5 meters in depth. 1 m3 total volume. A person lays inside with baggage at their feet and is dosed. Lid is closed. Air vents allow ventilation. This means 14 people per ton of cargo space. "Stack 'em deep and move em cheap."

The Ship TL 12
Planetoid: 500 tons. Armour 2 400 tons usable interior space. 2 million cost. Albe has an asteroid belt so raw materials are there.
J Drive tl 11 Jump 2 budget. energy inefficient: Tons 30 Cost 33.75
M-Drive: Thrust 1 budget energy inef. Tons 5 Cost 7.5
Power Plant: TL 12 20 tons 300 Power Produced Tons 20 Cost 35 MCr
Batteries: TL 12 120 points stored 2 tons Cost: 0.4
Fuel: 2 tons for power plant
2 tons for pinnace or reserve
100 tons J2
Bridge 20 tons
TL 9 computer 10 Rating for J2 Jumps. Civilian Sensors
No weapons
Docking space: Pinnace 44 tons
Medical Bay with Autodoc 4 tons
2 fuel processors
20 tons Biosphere: Each ton removes 2 passengers cost of life support. http://www.variconaqua.com/products-services/phyco-flow/
5 tons of regular cargo: Spare parts basically
7 Staterooms for crew: 2 pilots, astrogator, 2 engineers, 1 mechanic, and 1 biosphere gardener.


The Biosphere reduces life support cost for 40 people. 7 crew leaves 33 people's worth of life support left. 1400 people in coffins at 60 coffins per person is 23.33 people's worth of life support, so there is plenty of extra capacity.

I have 398 tons of space accounted for and a cost of 103 million credits. This is a resuable ship, not a throwaway. This ship would allow 1400 people to be moved per month to Cordillon. The colonists would be dosed and loaded into coffins and moved to the ship and loaded into the cargo bay. The ship would then Jump to Cordillon and unload them with the pinnace and whatever other ships are available. The colonists would wake up in 2 months, or could be woken up by a doctor and autodoc combination with an antidote for the Fast Drug.

Cost per person is 200 Credits for the Drug. If you charged 1000 Credits per person you could make 1.4 million each month, plus whatever you make bringing cargo back to Albe on the return trip.

 

[paltrysum]

That's a pretty cool idea! I might just use it, or a close facsimile. Thanks for posting!

 

[PsiTraveller]

You are welcome.

Really cheap version (too cheap in my opinion, re-usability will lower costs over the longer term)

Throwaway rock system

Asteroid towed to outside 100 diameter limit.

Throwaway Jump Drives. 24 tons, energy inefficient. 8.4 Million credits. You save 25 million credits on cost of ship.
No M Drives, saves you 7.5 million credits. This is a rock in space that has tenders handling logistics, just like the express boat service.
No fuel processors.

So you get a few more tons in, enough for almost another 200 people. But this means a 70 million one shot expense as opposed to a 103 million re-usable ship. But it is possible.

 

[paltrysum]

Seems like a great idea. In my campaign, I assume that after two and a half millenia, Albe is pretty tapped of lanthanum; however, huge lodes were found by a wildcatter Senlis Foederate prospecting team on one of the outer-system worlds of Kydde system (Trojan Reach hex 1810). So they'll have their jump drives, but Albe really doesn't want to spend a lot of money on people they're trying to get rid of. Callous and cynical, yes, but that's life, right?

Your solution, even forgoing low berths really fits well into my campaign. When my players find out the colonists are being shipped in "coffins" or perhaps gurneys with an IV attached to them for some semblance of safety, their reaction will be interesting. They've already expressed sympathy for the plight of the colonists. This might make for an interesting development in the campaign. Also, the more disgust I can engender with the Imperium, GeDeCo, and the criminal elements of Theev, the more likely they will get ticked off and become commerce raiders for Drinax. 8)

 

[PsiTraveller]

You could skip the coffins and just have a cargo bay of bunk beds, looking like a prison dormitory scene. The people store belongings under the bed and then off to bed they go. They wake up at the destination and leave on the shuttle. Coffins make it easier to load and ignore. The people become cargo on the ground and have a lower life support impact.

 

[Condottiere]

I really should get Pirates.

But economically speaking, one shot jumps indicate that you're within easy range of your departure point, so using a more regular drive would allow a regular scheduled trade route to be built up.

Unless it's Ceti Alpha V.

 

[steve98052]

Another possibility would be a really old bulk cargo ship, Way Beyond what its original owners considered its useful life, reconditioned and sold to a new owner, use until the second owner considered it too much of a junker to continue using, possibly repeated a few more times. Based on a rumor about a market for a colony ship, starship brokers arrange for the old piece of junk to be delivered to this area, fitted out with colonist bunks and biosphere modules, and thrown into service. Throw on some bogus paperwork asserting that the ship is suitable for human transportation -- which it isn't, by ordinary safety standards -- and it's ready for service.

How many colonists is this colonial mission meant to transport?

 

[paltrysum]

Based on the notion that Albe has 20 billion people crammed onto a medium-sized desert world, I'm guessing a lot. A few million would be a drop in the bucket, so I'm guessing at least 50-100 million, and probably more along the lines of 500 million over several years of back-and-forth transport.

 

[PsiTraveller]

Send a mission to Browne. 90 Billion people on a 0% desert world. They have some kick ass water reclamation tech.

 

[paltrysum]

That and probably extracting ice from their 10 other planets and any gas giant moons that have any. So just how did a planet in the middle of the Rift end up with 90 billion people?

 

[PsiTraveller]

Its isolated position on the edge of the Great Rift makes
Browne a singularly unlikely place for a colony, especially
a colony of some thirty billion people. A heavy scout
from the First Imperium misjumped, stranding it here
thousands of years ago. The scout could not be repaired,
so its crew decided to land and settle the desert world.
Fortunately, the commander of the scout ship was a
singularly intelligent and far-sighted woman who realised
that they would have to immediately plan for the long
term. She set up a policy of information transfer, ensuring
that the scientific knowledge of the group would not be
lost even though they had no industrial base to work from,
and make water rationing part of the new civilisation from
the moment of landing (the scout ship’s fuel purifiers
were adapted to produce potable water


So they reduced the population in the 2nd drinax boook (pg 187 book 2). My background storyline for my Drinax campaign is looking at Browne as a source of troops to the new Sindalian army/Navy/Marine force. The planet is a huge pool of labour and talent.

 

[Condottiere]

And there's "The Water Must Flow."

 

[BigDogsRunning]

Paltrysum made mention of a desire for a cheap throwaway colony ship to move people from Albe to Cordillon in the thread on Solar Panels. I thought that was a cool idea. Here is my quick and dirty offf the cuff design to make a cheap system for moving lots of people. It uses Fast Drug as a means of reducing costs.
Fast Drug places the person into a slow metabolic state so 1 day is 2 months of time for them.

FAST DRUG
Also called Hibernation, this drug puts the Traveller into a
state akin to suspended animation, slowing his metabolic rate
down to a ratio of 60 to 1 – a subjective day for the Traveller
is actually two months. Fast Drug is normally used to prolong
life support reserves or as a cheap substitute for a cryoberth.

So dosing a person makes a slow breathing "corpse" for 2 months and uses 1 day of life suppport in that time.
So doing the math: 60 people on slow drug uses 1 day of life support in 1 day. For 200 Credits per person. And thus coffin transport is born.

Coffins: 1 meter wide, 2 meters deep 0.5 meters in depth. 1 m3 total volume. A person lays inside with baggage at their feet and is dosed. Lid is closed. Air vents allow ventilation. This means 14 people per ton of cargo space. "Stack 'em deep and move em cheap."

The Ship TL 12
Planetoid: 500 tons. Armour 2 400 tons usable interior space. 2 million cost. Albe has an asteroid belt so raw materials are there.
J Drive tl 11 Jump 2 budget. energy inefficient: Tons 30 Cost 33.75
M-Drive: Thrust 1 budget energy inef. Tons 5 Cost 7.5
Power Plant: TL 12 20 tons 300 Power Produced Tons 20 Cost 35 MCr
Batteries: TL 12 120 points stored 2 tons Cost: 0.4
Fuel: 2 tons for power plant
2 tons for pinnace or reserve
100 tons J2
Bridge 20 tons
TL 9 computer 10 Rating for J2 Jumps. Civilian Sensors
No weapons
Docking space: Pinnace 44 tons
Medical Bay with Autodoc 4 tons
2 fuel processors
20 tons Biosphere: Each ton removes 2 passengers cost of life support. http://www.variconaqua.com/products-services/phyco-flow/
5 tons of regular cargo: Spare parts basically
7 Staterooms for crew: 2 pilots, astrogator, 2 engineers, 1 mechanic, and 1 biosphere gardener.


The Biosphere reduces life support cost for 40 people. 7 crew leaves 33 people's worth of life support left. 1400 people in coffins at 60 coffins per person is 23.33 people's worth of life support, so there is plenty of extra capacity.

I have 398 tons of space accounted for and a cost of 103 million credits. This is a resuable ship, not a throwaway. This ship would allow 1400 people to be moved per month to Cordillon. The colonists would be dosed and loaded into coffins and moved to the ship and loaded into the cargo bay. The ship would then Jump to Cordillon and unload them with the pinnace and whatever other ships are available. The colonists would wake up in 2 months, or could be woken up by a doctor and autodoc combination with an antidote for the Fast Drug.

Cost per person is 200 Credits for the Drug. If you charged 1000 Credits per person you could make 1.4 million each month, plus whatever you make bringing cargo back to Albe on the return trip.

If the Pinnace is properly anchored, you could do also away with the M-Drive, and use the thrusters on the Pinnace to push the ship around for in-system maneuvering, in addition to moving your Zombies around. Like the Annic Nova uses its cutters. A later poster correctly points out that you could remove the M-Drive and just rely on in-system tenders, but this seems more versatile.